Law
A number of laws addressed the issue of relations between men and boys. None but citizens could engage free boys in pederastic relationships. A law stated that “A slave shall not be the lover of a free boy nor follow after him, or else he shall receive fifty blows of the public lash”, and slaves likewise were forbidden from the wrestling schools: “A slave shall not take exercise or anoint himself in the wrestling-schools”. Both laws were attributed to Solon. Commercial pederasty involving free boys was also forbidden. The relative who lent out a ward for illicit intercourse was punished. Boys who sold their favors (hetaireesis) risked losing most of their rights as citizens once come to adulthood. One surviving piece of Greek oratory documents a legal case, Against Timarchos, in which Aeschines pleads to enforce precisely that law against his opponent. Hubris (rape) was against the law not only in the case of free boys, but even with slaves.
In order to prevent teachers from taking advantage of their charges, a law was passed forbidding them from opening their schools before dawn or staying open past sunset. Likewise, there was a law threatening with death any man under forty who trespassed onto school grounds.
Read more about this topic: Athenian Pederasty
Famous quotes containing the word law:
“I wish my countrymen to consider that whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can ever commit the least act of injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it. A government which deliberately enacts injustice, and persists in it, will at length even become the laughing-stock of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is a law of life that human beings, even the geniuses among them, do not pride themselves on their actual achievements but that they want to impress others, want to be admired and respected because of things of much lower import and value.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“Making it a valid law to learn by suffering.”
—Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.)